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Re: (meteorobs) Early Perseids/Eta Perseids



George Z.

Thanks for the update on the Eta Perseids. I look forward to seeing the 
complete report. I hope to be doing more meteor observing as I am on vacation 
for the next two weeks. I also hope to run a check on possible previous 
activity this weekend and I will e-mail the results as soon as I find out 
anything. 

By the way, as I stated after your Xi Draconid observations, I love minor 
meteor showers. You and Bob are doing a fantastic job monitoring the skies. 
Although I am glad the NAMN is encouraging people to observe the major radiants 
and has apparently inspired a lot of people to watch the skies, I would really 
like to see some additional encouragement to watch for minor radiants. Major 
showers are in the minority, and I might be going out on a limb here, but it 
seems reasonable to assume that streams producing hourly rates of 5 per hour 
should greatly outnumber streams producing 10 per hour, and, if we continue 
this one more step, streams with rates of 1 per hour should greatly outnumber 
streams producing 5 per hour. The problem is no one wants to spend a night 
watching a stream with a rate of one per hour. What you and Bob are doing is 
showing people that there is always some activity going on and that, for those 
who are patient enough, discoveries of new or lost meteor showers (the latter 
referring to Bob's recent post on the Alpha Cygnids) are possible.

Gary